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UNICEF: Release all children in detention during pandemic

Officials from UNICEF and the United Nations said detained children should be released across the world due to dangers from the coronavirus pandemic. Handout photo/Office of U.S. Congresswoman Doris Matsui/UPI | License Photo


May 11 (UPI) -- UNICEF and United Nations officials on Monday urged that all children held in detention around the world be immediately released during the COVID-19 crisis, including almost 200 held in Palestine.

Citing Israeli Prison Service detention reports that 194 Palestinian children were being held in detention at the end of March, officials from UNICEF and the UN's Human Rights Office called for Israel and the State of Palestine to release children, the majority of whom have not been convicted, but are awaiting trial.

"The rights of children to protection, safety and wellbeing must be upheld at all times. In normal times, the arrest or detention of a child should be a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time," a joint statement from Genevieve Boutin, special representative for UNICEF in the State of Palestine, and James Heenan, head of the UN Human Rights Office said.

Children in detention are denied visitors and access to their parents and lawyers, officials said. Pandemic-related court delays are keeping children behind bars longer, especially because most are being detained while awaiting a hearing.

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The statement follows a pandemic overview released by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, that recommends that because of dangers of COVID-19 children in detention should be immediately released from police institutions, prisons, secure centers, migration detention centers or camps.

Children are especially at-risk during the pandemic, an April statement from UNICEF director Henrietta Fore said.

"Detained children are ... more vulnerable to neglect, abuse and gender-based violence, especially if staffing levels or care are negatively impacted by the pandemic or containment measures," Fore said. "We call on governments and other detaining authorities to urgently release all children who can safely return to their families or an appropriate alternative."

In the United States, a California federal judge in April ordered the Trump administration to speed up the release of migrant children held in U.S. detention facilities, citing the risk of COVID-19. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee said the U.S. violated the 1993 Flores Agreement, which said children cannot be detained longer than 20 days.

A United Nations report released in November initially claimed that more than 100,000 migrant children were being detained in the United States. That number was later revised downward to 69,000 by attorney Manfred Nowak, author of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty."

The report showed that the United States had the highest number of detained minors, followed by Mexico, with 18,000 children detained.